A game at last!

W'hey I got a game at last, but that's almost as good as it's going to get! This was a league game and being a Sunday B team friendly type player, the format was different to any of the games I've played in before, with points being awarded for different things occuring in the game, for instance we missed out on additional points because we couldn't quite make it to 200 when we batted.

I took my place as the 11th batsman and was surprised to see that the wickets fell fairly quickly and it looked as though I'd actually get to bat, but then as the wickets fell there was one bloke who was doing well, fairly quickly reaching his 50 while all the others at the other end were being dismissed. As the No.8 went in I realised that they were talking about the bloke that was batting well reaching his 100 and that there was a need for the other batsmen to hold up their end and get the good bloke on strike and not go mad. The two blokes in front of me did well - a lot better than me - scoring runs for a start and one of them, Dean hit at least 3 fours before he was dismissed, but they both went down leaving the good batsman just short of his century 92 or 94 leaving me the job of helping to see him across the line. We were on about 188 at this point , so as you can see apart from this one bloke no-one else had any answers to their bowling attack, so it looked as though I would go the same way as the others within a few balls. But, I went in not expecting to be dismissed, but to see how it went and not do anything particularly daft. Everyone had said that the kid that was to be bowling at me was swinging the ball in and this had been causing problems and as I met the batsman halfway he said the same thing 'Watch the ball swinging in, follow my call, don't do anything daft just keep blocking it and try and get me on strike'. So that's what I tried to do. For some reason the bloke had a calming effect on me and perhaps because he'd never seen me bat before he didn't have this look of resignation on his face, he came across as being determined and with some belief that I could do it, so I bought into it.

So, no swinging shots, be aware of the fact that it's going to come into me and keep the bat straight and close in to my legs and not leave that stupid gap that I always seem to do. The kid ran up and down came the ball - initially well outside of off and then whizzed inwards just as they said and really full! I stabbed the bat down and it virtually stopped dead at my feet and trickled away to the off-side. I'd kept that one out and yep it was swinging. Another ball was on the money, but then disappeared down legside. Ends changed and the bloke got a one away and we ran two, a single followed at some point and again I ended up on strike, one was aimed at my head and went for a no-ball, another hit my pads most definitely going down leg, and then one came in from wide very full again and I just clipped it off my legs down the legside for two like a proper cricket player!!! The strike changed again, I don't remember facing the other bowler or hitting him for runs, but I was staying in and the batsman was accumulating runs and where we could we rotated the stike on the last ball of the over when he needed to get back at the strikers end for the next over and then he ran one and a big cheer went up. He'd scored his century, his second ever, the last one being the previous year against the same team. We did the thing in the middle where you punch each others gloves and I congratulated him and he said we'd now look to get the score up to 200 for the extra points.

The game resumed and within a matter of about 3 balls it was all over with 5 more runs or thereabouts short of the 200. A pretty innocious looking ball went down the off-side and the bloke cut the ball straight to a bloke at backwards of point a the best catching level he could and the innings was over and I got yet another not out. In a way it was a shame because the good batsman had never had a not out and he was looking to do the double.

And then they batted (Sort of)

Yeah this was peculiar. At 195 with the possibility of as many as 55 overs (I think) this was now on for a fight to get them all bowled out, the expectation was that they'd go for it. They had 4 adults and the rest were teenagers. Two of the adults were older blokes who looked like they had at least a 100 years of experience between them of batting, so the potential was there for them to tick over runs gradually. There were two more blokes that were between 28-38, so younger and fitter that would get the run rate up potentially and then the rest were teenagers so anything could happen in their case, the only other 100's I've ever seen have been made by the Downes brothers at Grays and Chadwell, Lee and wosshisface - sorry can't remember his name but they were both about 14 when they did it and that was playing against adults.

But it wasn't to be. The two older blokes clung on till about the 20th over with a run rate of about 1 run per over, they just blocked and blocked when the fast bowlers were bowling and then on came the batsman who'd scored the 100. His bowling was a bit slower and varied in its speed and eventually a slower ball got one of the older blokes driving forwards too early and he was dismissed for a bowled and caught. By that time even if the younger kids were up for it they had a lot of work to do, but they weren't, the other old bloke soon went and was replaced by two kids that blocked and blocked and ocassionaly play the odd agressive shot. Then I was brought on......

So in practice I bowl like this on a consistent basis and recently my bowlings yo-yo'd a bit, so isn't up to the same standards that you see in this vid link, but at the same time it's not been bad. But, I've got to admit I do get the Yips a bit when bowling in front of blokes on my own team that I don't know and I think the reverse happened in this bowling situation as to what happened with the batting earlier. I've been trying to think of a similie to describe what my bowling was like and came up with a really naff one that I kind of liked and used elsewhere...... I bowled like a squirrel. How's that? What do you reckon squirrels bowl like? Yep, that's how bad it was. First ball up didn't even land on the strip it was that Pinno-esque, but then it got slightly better. I think one kid in that first over hit a ball down to fine leg that went for 4, but other than that it was okay run-wise. To be honest I'm not sure whether I had 3 or 4 overs as they were all nightmarish in several ways, one key aspect was that I wasn't sure whether I was going for bowling with a bound or whether I was going for the Terry Jenner walk in approach, so that screwed my head up. Added to that there was a wide per over and my line was poor for almost every ball. One bizarre thing that I was made aware of was how important it is to be aware of the weather over there in relation to whether you bat or field. If the weather is fine with little or no cloud cover you have to consider that if you field first, you're then going to be batting facing a sun that is going to be right in your eyes if the oppo has got slow bowlers. B&PCC make no bones about it at all calling for me to pitch it up high 'Bowl him a sun ball Dave loop it up high into the sun'. One of the middle overs went better with a Leg Break bowled over the wicket that landed wide of the leg stump turning into the stumps and hitting the wood-work. Initially I didn't think that's what had happened, I thought it was a stumping, but yep it turned round the back of his legs which I'd seen and into the stumps. Normally here I'd be cock-a-hoop about that happening, but it was a kid, so for some reason I'm not that fussed, I want to bowl a batsman of some years round the back of his legs, not some youth. From then on it was pretty much Squirrel standard again with a couple of 4's being hit through the covers along the ground and needless to say the captain gave me a rest.

The batting pretty much carried on in the same vein, no-one making any attempt to make any runs, just looking to ride the game out through to a draw and it seems as though that's what they must have decided at tea. Towards the end, one of the other adults (the younger bloke who was in his mid 20's) made some effort to hit the ball.

There was a good phase at the death of the game where a younger bloke (Sean Healey) who normally bowls seam up bowled off-spin along with John Bedford who had a groin injury. They tried to finish off the last batsmen and take a win, but the last two stuck to their task and despite the fact that everyone was crowded round the bat all in silly positions survived the last 6 or so overs by just letting the ball go, sometimes missing the stumps by millimeteres or blocking it into the ground. So all in all an okay and kind of eventful game, which I enjoyed thoroughly despite my poor bowling and my knees held out!

Leg Break Bowling - technique & theory

I've been working on one of my other blogs regarding some new stuff I've been trying out and working with in practice. This relates to the need to get up on the toes when bowling and twisting the foot (Driven by the hips) through the rotation. This helps with getting additional height (bounce) and also increases spin and drift. Have a look.

http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/2011/08/bowling-action-basics.html

Girl surfing with one arm after shark attack

Have a look at this, this is amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84rQ2zriH1s

Ben's progress

Yesterday (Tuesday) was B&PCC U13's/U11's training night and as usual we were there putting in the hours practicing and Ben was excited about the prospect of using the homemade 'Training bat' which I was unsure about - imagining that he'd be in the nets for 20-25 balls and not hit one of them.

But, how wrong was I! Mike Blerkom was in the net next door keeping to the bowlers bowling at Harrison Morris and while he was doing that he was talking Ben through his batting telling him to leave the wide ones and to play with a dead straight bat getting his head over the ball and to watch the ball right on to the bat which was an interesting point, kind of like the Ricky Ponting tactic of saying to himself 'Watch the ball - watch the ball' repeatedly as the bowler runs in.

Ben did amazingly well, hit the ball not only with a straight bat, but also hitting the wide balls with cut shots leaving cherry marks in the middle of the bat! If only he could carry that same approach into the games and he'd do okay for himself. I just hope that as he gets older he's more interested in improving his batting, because he's a bit easy come easy go with his approach to training. But sessions like this are useful in improving his enthusiasm for it and he said while he was in there 'I'm liking this' to which I answered 'You can do this as often as you like in the paddock' to which there was no answer.

Push up and twist on the pivot foot

I'm not getting any games at all at the minute so I haven't got any sense of how well I'm doing bowling wise, but hopefully tonight I've got Paul Card coming over from B&PCC to have a bowl and a bat in the paddock and if it doesn't rain tomorrow my mate Simon might come over tomorrow, so they'll be a bit of test of how it's going. My older son Ben who fancies himself against my bowling generally comes unstuck pretty quickly despite slogging me a couple of times, so maybe something's going right?

Generally though Ireckon I'm bowling as good as I've ever done or possibly better, with the knee injury holding me back a tad, but that does seem to be improving slightly. One thing I am probably doing is being hyper critical of my bowling, this is in part down to the fact that I'm seeing other good Leg-Spinners (Dave Bonnet) and getting in depth analysis of my own bowling via youtube and the Bigcricket website members who discuss each others bowling. In comparison with some of those I've still got a long way to go.

Recently I've gone back to some really basic approaches to my bowling. For a start I've got rid of the stumps and I'm no longer concerned with hitting the stumps as the evidence would suggest that hitting the stumps as a percentage of the wickets you take as a wrist spinner is low in comparison with creating catching chances. So, in line with that approach I'm currently bowling onto a 12" x 12" mat moving it around trying to hit that. It follows that if you can put the ball where you like then you're more than likely to be more effective as a bowler? Currently I'm moving away from my year long obsession with how the ball leaves the hand and what you do there in order to get it spinning, because of late I'm aware of the fact that I do get it to spin and the spin is okay. The evidence and advice I'm getting is that the whole action approach if I get it right will improve on the spin and start to introduce things such as drift and dip and the thing I'm currently focusing on is the need to get up on the toes, getting tall and twisting the ankle in the rotation. It's this twisting action of the foot/ankle that is going to produce more spin + the drift and dip and the evidence during the last few practices is that this is indeed the case. So here's a video on youtube showing where I was on July 30th with this.

I'll work on this now for a week or so whilst at the same time working with whipping the arm over and tucking the arm in during the action and see what the results are and I'll upload another set of videos and hopefully there'll be something to report on.

Update: Just today having messed around with this for a few hundred balls it looks as though this is making a noticeable difference. Getting up the toes and twisting seems to sort out the arm action and the way the ball travels through the air. I seem to be bowling considerably faster with not a great deal more effort, yet the ball seems to be dropping on the length that I want, suggesting that one key improvement that is already evident is Dip? It also looks as though I am getting drift on the odd ocassion, but why that happens and how to ensure it happens when I want it to, completely alludes me and is something I may ask about, but from all the youtube videos and things I've read in the past it may be one aspect that you can't guarantee? With the dip there seems to be more 'action' on the ball in that it seems to bounce far more and with increased vigour. The turn off the wicket at the minute isn't massive all the time, but that may be due to the paddock being pretty smooth at the minute, because when a loose ball has gone leg-side into the rougher areas it's spun loads. So things are looking interesting.

Paddock Prep

Hot and sunny today and we had a session in the paddock which is beginning to crack up, making it fairly dangerous to play against faster bowling in, so I've had to take some action to repair it and make it usable as a mate of mine is coming over tomorrow and he's going to bowl and bat in it.

So this afternoon I've been back and forth with buckets of water getting the surface wet and soft so that it can be rolled with some of the bigger cracks filled with fresh earth. So having done that and rolled it, it's looking pretty good again ready for tomorrow. The only downer is the fact that some of the football kids who are always looking to ruin our cricket activities in some way, trod all over the newly rolled surface, making pock marks all over it. Luckily they dont have a clue as to what to do in order to cause problems and real damage so their attempts were fairly superficial. It'll be interesting to see how the repairs and rolling hold up, because the work was done in a new way, with the surface being soaked locally along the seamers line and then fresh dry earth being applied in a thin layer over the wet surface. The idea being that once rolled the dry earth will bond with the original surface and become damp. Once that was done an additional light watering was applied to the new surface and rolled beneath a fine mesh to get a really smooth surface. It'll dry over-night, so I wont know if the bonding of the two substrates will work, because they're of two differing soil types, the existing surface is primarily clay with some organic material 95% + 5%, where as the new layer is probably 50/50, so may dry out far quicker and therefor crumble quickly. This is all experimental so we'll just have to see how it goes?

Bowling with the bound.

I've bowled badly for a few weeks now, maybe longer - slow, wide, no turn, no spin, too full - loads of problems. The main reason I've felt is because of the lack of a bound in the bowling action. It's as though having been there once already and seeing the potential, everything else I've bowled since without the use of the bound has looked or at least seemed to be very inferior. At the end of June whilst on holiday I re-knackered my knee ligaments and so have been unable to put in the practice with the use of the bound, but in the last 2 weeks the knee has got better and I've been introducing the bound in small spells. Unfortunately these short spells have been poor as well even with the bound, I've just felt really un-gainly. But what with the school holidays being here and the weather being fine, I've been up and about a lot and mobile and the knee seems to be in a good condition again. So tonight I bowled with the bound off a short run up and for the first time in a long while it came together nicely and I bowled exceptionally well - with pace, accuracy and lots of turn, it looked like the kind of bowling that would cause people problems and would lead to wickets. Let's see if I can repeat the same thing again tomorrow?

Wednesday - Batting

Wanting to capitalise on the continuing enthusiasm for all this cricket, part of me was wary of it becoming an over-kill situation, but both Ben and Joe wanted to do more catching and fielding drills and some of that was going to be include the batting and bowling aspects.

Yesterday I'd noticed that as the ball each time had been returned to me, my left hand had started to suffer a little from all the catches, so I looked at how much a catchers mitt would cost to buy and while I was doing so, I also remembered that I'd also seen a CJI brand training bat and had been considering buying one for all of us. But looking at them I realised that what with all the bats I've got in the garage there must be one in there that I could modify and all I had to do is go down to the local wood yard and get the bloke to saw off the edges with his band saw. Ben liked the idea and we had a look through all the bats in the garage and found a really old one that I'd bought with a job lot of equipment for £40 off ebay (3 bats, keepers gloves, a bag and cricket shoes and some other stuff). This bat was one that a few times I'd thought about chucking as it looked homemade, but had kept it for mucking about with on concrete and stuff. But looking around it was the only one of the 'crap' bats that was left, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Twenty minutes later we'd had it cut and were sanding it down and getting it ready to have a knock about with. The bloke at the yard had initially been reluctant not sure whether becuase of the nature of the bats shape whether he'd be able to get a straight edge on it and end up pissing us off because he'd runined our bat. I assured him it didn't matter if it went wrong and he did a good job on it in the end.
Shaped up, fitted with a bat grip and sanded down it came up looking like this -

So this afternoon we had a repeat performance of yesterdays drills and games using the bat and out of everybody the person that seemed to get on with it the best was Ben and he used it predominantly straight although there is a caveat at this point in that we used a plastic ball all afternoon when playing the edge game. But just before tea some of the others went in and I got Ben to stay behind and have a go at facing some throw downs with it using a proper ball and we spent another half hour doing that and he batted superbly, hitting the ball 95% of time true and straight through the covers or back straight past me, and again for the most part along the ground and not in the air. I too had a go and found that by playing the shots properly I was able to middle it. But again I have to temper this enthusiasm and potential break-through with the fact that these were chuck downs and not full-length bowling.

So that's the next step - tomorrow in the paddock with the nets fully padded up for a proper batting session using this 75mm wide training bat and we'll see how we get on in there?

Monday Lords

The bloke on the tele said that the tickets would be £20 for adults and free for under 16's with ID. The match looked poised for a good ending and perhaps as well as India losing we might be treated to a bit of a fight from Tendulkar and him scoring his 100th century? It looked like a plan.

I texted a couple of mates to see if they'd be up for it and none of them were, but one warned 'Get there early as it'll be packed'. We heeded his message and decided we'd get there just as the ticket office opened at 08.30 hrs. With sandwhiches, drinks, passports (ID), binoculars and £20 cash ready we made our way to Lords coming round the corner to our first view of the ground at 08.32. What we saw, we could not believe, the queue went up one road out of sight and down the other road out of sight 4 people wide! Thousands and thousands of people already there and waiting it didn't look promising. I knew that the capacity of the ground was in the 25,000 figure, but just what we could see here was several thousand already. We followed the queue along the road and round several corners and past another seperate queue that was apparently just as long! 10 minutes later we found the end and joined with the prospect it seemed of probably missing the start of the match.

A little later some marshalls went along the crowd saying 'Can you please be aware that you are so far down the queue, you're not guranteed a seat and you may well be turned away. Can we please ask you not to turn on the marshalling staff as it is out of their hands and not their fault'. Again, this didn't really fill us with any sense of hope, but we were here and it looked like we might get lucky.

Shortly after joining the queue (10 mins) a bloke pushed in and an Asian bloke directly in front of us took exception to this blokes action and accosted him, telling him to get out of the queue and get to the back. I was most impressed, I hate queue jumpers, but find that because of my British reserve I don't ever say anything to them directly, but this bloke dealt with the queue jumper effectively and I decided to take a leaf out of his book and join him and help him eject any more queue jumpers and this turned out to be a good move as it served to break up the boredom of queueing for 2.5 hours and created a sense of community amongst the people around us who all joined in eventually to form a united front against queue jumpers.

to be continued

Tuesday Practice and Drills

You may have noticed that this blog has become a lot more about my sons this year, which is true, but this is slightly out of my hands in that it's been down to a couple of things. First off I'm carrying an injury to my knee ligaments which may be the end of my cricket playing in the not too distant future as it seems that each time it seems to be getting better, I've only got to do something relatively 'Physical' and it goes again. But in addition to that I swapped teams going from Thurrock CC to B&PCC to join my sons as their club and this doesn't seem to have worked out either as since the start of the season I've played in two games one of which was an inter-club game. Supposedly the team I'd generally play in I'd have thought would have been the Sunday B team, which I've not even had a sniff of an invite for, whereas last year when I wasn't even in the team I played for 4 or 5 times? I get selected for the Saturday IX's but number 15-18 on the team sheet, so I never get a match with them and it's Saturday anyway and my preference is Sunday. So, being with B&PCC isn't working for me and it seems to be the same with some of the other players who seem to get their games with other teams and not B&PCC, so that's a bit of a dilemma.

So, as a result I haven't got that much to write about and I've resorted to writing about my kids and the some of the kids at B&PCC. Anyway, today the enthusiasm was taken a step further again in that we did training drills and made up a game based on what we'd seen in the field at Lords. For me as I'd mentioned one of the most exciting things in the game was seeing Swanne bowling with Ian Bell, Matt Prior, and Alastair cook and Andrew Strauss all crowded round the bat trying to take close in catches. So, today we came up with a game where I bowled and the batsman had to produce strokes that would create edges and catching chances for the close in fielders to take and it worked, they loved it and were diving around all over the place. Then later on we did some catching drills of the type they do at Mopsies with the coaches - the one where all the lads stand in a line and the coaches hits a ball off the bat to the line of boys and they catch it. They loved it and some of their other non cricketing mates are also getting into it as well. Secretly I'm trying to encourage one of them to take up being a wicket keeper.

The day was then finished off with the usual Tuesday evening over at Mopsies doing their regular training with their team. Today they were doing diving - stops on the boundary, which kind of tied in with what we'd been doing. Then at the end Joe, Ben and Kieran didn't want to leave they wanted to stay behind and do more cricket drills!